Keno bringing new way to place bets in Connecticut

AGAWAM, Mass. >> After his daily nine-hole golf game, Joe Barbato spends most of the day hanging out at the Dairy Store on Suffield Street.

Sure, you can buy milk, snacks and cigarettes there, but the Dairy Store isn’t really like a Cumberland Farms. It’s actually a keno parlor.

Long, low counters are lined up behind each other, so keno players can sit, fill out their betting slips and watch the monitor above them on the wall. Since there’s a new game every four minutes, guys like Barbato don’t get bored.

“I do excellent … I do have a system,” Barbato says. “I probably bet over 100-something dollars a day without a doubt.”

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Keno parlors aren’t likely in Connecticut, at least at first, but the game, which the General Assembly legalized in this year’s session, may pop up at bars and restaurants so, as in Massachusetts, people can play as they eat dinner or socialize at the bar.

The attention-grabbing monitor used for keno displays 80 numbers. In each game, 20 are randomly selected as winners.

Bettors pick as many as 12 numbers, but usually choose fewer. You can bet $1 on one number; if it’s a match with one of the 20 winning numbers, you win $2.50. Oddly, if you bet $1 on 12 numbers and don’t match any, you still win $4.

But the most common bet is a “five-spot game,” because matching all five of your numbers brings you $450 for a $1 bet. Anything less than $600 and you get paid on the spot — and the tax man won’t be the wiser. Otherwise, you have to go to Massachusetts Lottery headquarters to collect your winnings.

Barbato, who also travels regularly to Atlantic City, N.J., said “everything’s got an addiction. You’ve got to know when to stop.” Barbato says he’s not addicted: “I don’t bet what I don’t have and I don’t borrow to bet and you don’t lend.” He also never complains about losing, he said, which he calls the mark of an addict.

Another man sitting at a counter watching the monitor, Pete Towle of West Springfield, said he plays 10 or 15 games two or three times a week and has been coming to the Dairy Store for 15 years. “It’s sort of like ‘Cheers’; everybody knows your name,” he said. There’s even an outdoor patio in the back.

Besides the large number of potential winning numbers, keno differs from other games, like Pick 5 or Powerball, in the number of games a day — 300 — and in the kinds of places that have the game prominently displayed: bars and restaurants. There’s also a “Keno to-go” option, in which you can make a bet at a gas station. But there’s no monitor so you have to check the winning numbers on your computer or come back to have your ticket scanned.

Keno is “what we call a social game and offered in bars, taverns,” said Beth Bresnahan, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts State Lottery. “There’s more interaction. It’s more of an entertainment option, while having a couple of drinks, going out to dinner.”

Keno is expected to come to Connecticut sometime in 2014. It was included in the budget deal passed at the end of this year’s General Assembly session. House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, has objected to the way it was pushed through to balance the budget, without a public hearing.

Frank Farricker, chairman of the Connecticut Lottery Corp.’s board of directors, said his best guess is that Connecticut gamers will be able to play keno in April 2014. He said the September meeting of the board will vote on a $2.7 million allocation “to start to implement the physical aspects of keno,” including buying hardware and software and hiring staff.

“That sole process will take a minimum of six months,” Farricker said. “We’re not going to roll out keno until we’re absolutely ready.”

But while keno seems like a new game, Farricker said “it’s been in the offing for at least 10 years.”

He didn’t know how many outlets there would be, but said, “By the time we’re ready to play the first game I expect we’ll have a fairly decent cross-section of new partners in bars and restaurants and existing (lottery) vendors.”

Keno is Massachusetts’ best-selling gambling game after instant scratch tickets, which make up 70 percent of sales. Keno totals 17 percent and brought in $800 million last fiscal year (in a state almost twice as populous as Connecticut). “Instant tickets really have been the lifeblood and the generator behind our sales,” said Bresnahan. Connecticut has plenty of those games, commonly called scratch-offs.

Bresnahan said lottery sales agents have been trained to teach those taking bets how to spot problem gamblers.

Connecticut is surrounded by keno, with New York and Rhode Island offering the game. New York, which calls it Quick Draw, brought in $580 million in the last fiscal year, just 6.5 percent of the state’s $8.93 billion in total gambling sales, including nine casinos.

‘IT KEEPS THEM HERE’

Down Suffield Street at Murphy’s Pub, a few people were playing at the bar during lunch time. Cheri Abbott of Agawam said her luck lately has been “horrible … but I’ve won $100 a couple times before.”

Abbott plays only casually. “I’m not a big gambler so if I have the option of different computerized games in a bar I’ll play keno.” She said groups will play a variation, “bar keno,” in which the group pools its money on one bet.

Karissa Staves, a bartender at Murphy’s who also runs the keno machine, said, “It definitely keeps me busy. People want to play their keno before they get a new beer half the time.”

Mike Murphy, owner of the pub, said, “We do tell people, though, that the food and beverage come before the keno.”

Ryan Meagher, a bartender at Kaptain Jimmy’s Restaurant and Distillery, said people come up from Connecticut to play the game. “They really enjoy it and it keeps them here,” he said.

Marcel Stroman of Enfield is one. “I’m on Exit 49 so I’m right on the border of Enfield and Springfield so I come over here just to play keno,” he said. “Right now I got in 30 (games). Sometimes I’ll come and play 20 games and put $40 on it.”

One of the features of keno is that you can play a number of games in advance, using the same bet or varying the numbers. Stroman plays five numbers. “I want that $450 (for matching all five) so I don’t have to pay taxes,” he said.

Keno is a “little more fun than playing scratch tickets … At least you can sit down, have a beer, watch keno … Something to do, pass the time.”

ADDICTION DANGER

Opponents of keno warn that more types of gambling will attract more gamblers and that keno’s social aspect makes it more attractive to compulsive gamblers.

However, Margot Cahoon, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling said, while all types of gambling can attract addicts, “Keno is not reported to be as much of a problem as scratch tickets or slot machines.” Because of its “pretty instant” gratification, though, “Keno keeps people in action and people who have problems with gambling, they want to be in action, they want to keep doing it and doing it,” she said. In that way it’s similar to slot machines, Cahoon said.

Mary Drexler, executive director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, has great concerns about young people being attracted to the game. She’s heard “that it will be in family-style restaurants or any restaurants that have bars. As long as alcohol is served, it’s an open field.” That includes outlets like pizza parlors, she said.

A native of Massachusetts, Drexler said that when she goes there, “I often see children filling out the little slips that their parents then bring up to play.” That makes keno seem more like a harmless game than a form of gambling, she said.

“My other issue is with those in recovery,” Drexler said. “Now if they take their family to a restaurant, now there’s an electronic form of gambling that’s available to them,” making it much more difficult to avoid.

Drexler has concerns, too, that the council was not consulted before keno was put into the budget. She hopes experts in problem gambling will be brought in now before it’s implemented. “You need to do your research ahead of time before putting it in a budget bill and no public hearing was held on it,” Drexler said.

Farricker said the lottery corporation would definitely bring in experts on compulsive gambling. “I have a lot of people in my family who have problems with gambling,” he said. “I don’t think for a second that we’re not going to communicate with those guys and cooperate with them.”

Up to 6 percent of the state’s population are considered problem gamblers, according to the council’s website. The Problem Gambling Helpline is available 24 hours a day at 800-789-7777. There is also a free online chat at www.ccpg.org/get-help/live-chat and a texting option is in the works.

MAYORAL ISSUE

Keno has become a factor in New Haven’s mayoral race because one candidate, state Sen. Toni Harp, D-New Haven, was part of the leadership that accepted keno as a revenue raiser. Her involvement has been severely criticized by a Democratic primary challenger, former New Haven Economic Development Director Henry Fernandez.

Harp, who is co-chairwoman of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, said during a mayoral debate that keno was expected to raise $3 million this fiscal year and $30 million in 2014-15.

She said during that debate that keno “is not even going to restaurants,” then clarified her answer:

“Initially it’s not. Then you have to go get a license for it.” She said keno would be included at Lotto sites, where there would not be monitors, and at off-track betting sites. She downplayed the effect keno would have.

“If I’m thinking about what makes it addictive, I think it’s the monitors and the numbers that are pinging all the time. Remember, that Massachusetts has it. It’s really not that effective. People don’t play it that often, from what I gather.”

She said that if there were adequate revenues to replace keno she would vote to kill it. She was unable to be reached for this story.

One of Harp’s three opponents, Fernandez, is a former New Haven economic development director. He took a stand at a June press conference against keno, which he said cities ought to have final say over. “It will break up New Haven families, it will increase poverty, it will increase crime and it will do nothing to reduce New Haven’s budget problems,” Fernandez said.

However, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the game has been legalized and is unlikely to be taken away. Keno is “an expansion or just another variation on the lottery games that are currently run in Connecticut,” he said. As for keno being a more social gaming option if it is put in bars, he said, “I think it’s kind of a distinction without a difference,” adding that games like Powerball “are visible everywhere,” including TV ads and billboards.

He said a public hearing was held in 2010 when keno was proposed by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Sentiment at that hearing was largely negative, however.

Looney said the bottom line is that the legislature was under a constitutional mandate to pass a balanced budget and bringing in keno was a better option than cutting aid to seniors, children and municipalities.